1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to combustion systems for enhancing efficiency as streams of laminar air and fuel mix. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, the present invention relates to a combustion system for generating an optimized combustion stream by directing a stream of preconditioned laminar air mixed with a fuel through a combination of stoichiometric combustion staging arrangements and refractory units.
2. Description of Related Art
The general concept of low nitrogen-oxide (NOx) burners is to produce a flame that provides heat energy though a high efficiency combustion process with minimal waste products arising from the combustion, namely oxides of nitrogen of which form the basis for environmental pollution such as acid rain and smog. The resulting heat energy is used in a variety of industrial applications such as for boilers in energy generation; for furnaces employed in applications requiring high heat such as smelting metals, distilling chemicals, petrochemicals and gas; paper manufacturing; and for flaring oil and gas wells. Similarly, such “high efficiency” burners seek to minimize a combination of other combustion waste products in addition to NOx such as oxides of carbon (COx) and total hydrocarbons (THC) among others to comply with federal and international governmental requirements especially for global warming prevention as well as to conserve natural resources by maximizing the burn efficiency of the requisite raw materials for combustion.
Presently, many high efficiency burners require various swirling techniques to maximize the efficiency of a high efficiency burner. Swirling is a widely used mixing process for homogenizing an air fuel mixture in the combustion process by which atomized fuel is introduced into a turbulent stream of air. However, various swirling techniques are often non-uniformly applied across the entire combustion chamber. Detrimentally, fuel and air can become drawn apart from the air fuel mixture to thereby compromise combustion efficiency as well as to spread waste fuel throughout the combustion chamber which requires routinely taking the high efficiency burner out of commercial operation to perform preventative maintenance for structural damage. Moreover, turbulent or swirled air provides an aerodynamic drag-effect that generally interrupts the rate at which air is initially supplied to a combustion chamber, and therefore consequently decreasing the operational efficiency of the burner. Furthermore, costly and often bulky low-waste emissions monitoring equipment are integrated with effluent towers of current high efficiency burner systems to ensure operational efficiency. Additional costs incur as emissions monitoring equipment shorten the operational time of such burners to ensure overall operation within low-waste emission requirements.
Unfortunately, there is no known device or method for successfully providing a “high efficiency” combustion system for leaving negligible waste products for sustained use with industrial applications without use of swirling techniques or derivations of swirling techniques. Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for generating an optimized combustion stream by directing a stream of preconditioned laminar air with a fuel through a combination of stoichiometric combustion staging arrangements and refractory units. There is also a need for a system and method for quickly and accurately increasing combustion efficiency for a various applications through linking a series of interchangeable reaction efficiency modules to the system. Many other problems and disadvantages of the prior art will become apparent to one skilled in the art after comparing such prior art with the present invention as herein described.